CenHud decides to leave boat stuck in Hudson River

After weeks of digging, pulling and sawing, Central Hudson has decided to leave a steel boat stuck in the riverbed at Newburgh.

The roughly 150-foot-long boat is lodged where utility workers are dredging coal-tar pollution as part of a $27 million cleanup.

They tried to yank the boat out of the river bottom with a crane, pry it with an excavator and cut through it with underwater torches. In the end, only a 26,000-pound portion of the rudder was removed.

Central Hudson suspended its efforts to remove the boat in late June and consulted with state environment and historic preservation experts on whether it should try cutting the boat into pieces or leave it stuck.

Dave Schneck, the site manager for Central Hudson, said they decided leave the steel vessel in the river because it wasn’t worth the cost of removing. Also, the boat is not obstructing Central Hudson’s cleanup, Schneck said.

“They’re going to document the rudder and the tail piece and the rest will remain buried,” he said.

Consulting archeologists believe the boat is the New York, a passenger-service boat that ran between Albany and New York City. In 1908, the boat burned and was sunk at Newburgh’s harbor.